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Halophily reloaded: new insights into the extremophilic life-style of Wallemia with the description of Wallemia hederae sp. nov

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Abstract

Wallemia comprises air- and food-borne, mycotoxigenic contaminants including the halophilic W. ichthyophaga, xerotolerant W. sebi and xerophilic W. muriae. Wallemia isolates are easily overlooked and only a comparably small number of strains have been deposited in culture collections so far. In order to better understand the natural distribution of Wallemia spp. and to encounter their natural habitats, we tested more than 300 low-water-activity substrates and 30 air samples from a wide geographical coverage. We isolated more than 150 new Wallemia strains. Wallemia sebi and W. muriae were isolated mostly from hypersaline water, low-water-activity foods, plant materials and indoor. Wallemia muriae is the dominant Wallemia species in the air of natural and human influenced environments in Europe. New isolates of W. ichthyophaga were obtained from hypersaline environments such as brine, salt crystals, salty foods and MgCl2-rich bitterns, and from the air of hay barns in Denmark. Five halotolerant strains were recognised as a hitherto un-described species Wallemia hederae, the phylogenetic sister of the halophilic W. ichthyophaga. Wallemia spp. show in-vitro growth on media that contain the chaotropic salt MgCl2. Wallemia ichthyophaga can grow in liquid medium enriched with 2 M MgCl2. Never before has a microorganism been grown on comparably high MgCl2 concentrations. Tests of the activity of a wide range of extracellular enzymes in the presence of NaCl also suggested that Wallemia is well-adapted to substrates with a reduced water activity.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency to the Infrastructural Centre Mycosmo and for providing a Young Researcher Grant to S. J. The study was partly financed through the Centre of Excellence for Integrated Approaches in Chemistry and Biology of Proteins (Cipkebip, OP13.1.1.2.02.0005), which is financed by a European Regional Development Fund (85 % share of financing) and by the Slovenian Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology (15 % share of financing). The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the European Commission through the project MAESTRA - Learning from Massive, Incompletely annotated, and Structured Data (Grant number ICT-2013-612944).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, Jamnikarjeva 101, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Sašo Jančič, Polona Zalar & Nina Gunde-Cimerman

  2. Department of Knowledge Technologies, Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Dragi Kocev & Sašo Džeroski

  3. Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Hacquetova 17, p.p. 2553, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Hans-Josef Schroers

  4. Centre of Excellence for Integrated Approaches in Chemistry and Biology of Proteins (CIPKeBiP), Jamova cesta 39, SI-1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Sašo Džeroski & Nina Gunde-Cimerman

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  1. Sašo Jančič
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Jančič, S., Zalar, P., Kocev, D. et al. Halophily reloaded: new insights into the extremophilic life-style of Wallemia with the description of Wallemia hederae sp. nov. Fungal Diversity 76, 97–118 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13225-015-0333-x

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